Pirates of the 21st Century: A Modernized Sequel
by big tears
Summary: Brewster and Friday are on the trail of Jack & Liz Sparrow. Standard disclaimer applies. NO MORE HIATUS!
1. The Secretary

**A/N:** Dedicated to rhythmteck, who gave me the idea for this sequel. Hope it works for everyone.

_-=-_

On Lower Belgrave Street, there is a tiny office that hardly gets much notice from anyone. Of course, this makes a great deal of sense as the words CLOSED FOR REPAIRS are spray painted on the front window, but some people put things on their windows for strange reasons. Like those people who drive in front of you and have stickers that say BLACK SABBATH or I BRAKE FOR WHALES. As if there are going to be any whales in the middle of the road --

But that's not the point.

The point is, that while people were making sure to ignore the shop that was obviously closed, (but it really _wasn't_ closed because some people think it's necessary to disguise certain types of businesses) Friday Lawrence was sitting inside it and praying that someone would come in... or call... or give her something to do other than type letters to her employer's mother. Being the secretary of a flamboyant Private Investigator was not at all what it was cracked up to be.

It wasn't that Brewster Ackerly-Tate was difficult, really. He was just...

"Miss Lawrence, wake up, dear... Mum will want to know all about my new kitten, Mr. Fluffenstuff..."

...Very, very strange. 

Friday looked up at Detective Ackerly-Tate in immense puzzlement, and he looked down at her with a small degree of superiority... or maybe just giddiness that he had added another ball of fur to his collection of disgustingly sweet animals. Either way, she poised her hands above the keyboard of her laptop and raised an eyebrow.

"Dear Mumsey," said the Detective taking hold of the lapel of his suit coat with one hand, and waving the other one around madly. "Today I found the most adorable creature alive!"

_Dear Mumsey,_ wrote Friday. _Today I met the most interesting man -- and so attractive!_

It didn't matter what she typed. She never sent the letters to his mother, on the account that she would never want to hear such things from her son, if she ever had one. So she entertained herself by writing anything she pleased and opening them when she was at home. More than once she had paused to wonder if Detective Ackerly-Tate could ever actually _do_ any of the things she pretended he was doing.

Most of the time, the answer was yes.

"... He's orange and white, and has the most incredible blue eyes..."

_He's very pale, with shocking orange hair, but he makes up for that with his incredibly sexy blue eyes..._

And just as the Detective was getting to the part of the story where he adopted Mr. Fluffenstuff and bought him a lovely pink collar with a dainty little bow perched on top, a mysterious noise came from the area of a desk drawer.

Detective Ackerly-Tate paused, his finger pointed straight into the air. Friday held her breath, and waited...

_B-r-r-r-r-r-ring!_

The Detective lowered his eyebrows. "Is that," he said carefully, "the telephone?"

Friday opened the drawer from which the noise was making itself known, and found a gray, cordless phone receiver vibrating atop several magazines. She decided to do the bold, unthinkable thing and answer it.

"Brewster Ackerly-Tate, Private Investigator -- this is Friday, how may I help you?"

There was a pause at the other end of the line. "... I thought it was Tuesday,"

The voice of the man -- the _older_ and easily confused -- she was speaking to sounded incredibly bewildered, and Friday chuckled to herself before she replied.

"It _is_ Tuesday, sir, but this is Friday."

"... But you just said it was Tuesday!"

Before she could attempt to explain that Friday was her name, however, Detective Ackerly-Tate snatched the phone from her hands and proceeded to get information from whoever it was that needed his services.

"Detective Ackerly-Tate, speaking," he said in the usual, joyous tone. "Yes... Yes, I will travel... Of course." A pause. "US, you say? Smashing. Can-do, thank you very much for calling, sir. I will do my best to find her."

And then he turned off the phone.

"...So," Friday said.

"...So," the Detective said. 

This was usually the way conversations went, when the two of them weren't busy writing letters to Mumsey. This was also one of the many reasons Friday was glad that she didn't have to work very often.

"So, who was that?"

"Customer," he replied lightly, as though they had customers all the time.

"And his name was...?"

"Thomas Swann," the Detective said. "We're leaving for the States tomorrow to try and find his daughter, Elizabeth."

_-=-_


	2. The Detective

Brewster had not always wanted to be a private investigator. In fact, he had never even considered it. Ever since he had been a small boy, he had wanted to be an animal trainer, and work in Hollywood with famous actors and actresses -- he had always envisioned himself walking around Paramount Pictures Studios with Dustin Hoffman or Meryl Streep.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Ackerly-Tate did not at all agree with this choice of profession. They were, after all, the Brighton Ackerly-Tates, and although people told them that no career was below her child, she was insistant when little Brewster's future was in question.

"I will _not_ let my child work with _beasts_, Colin!" she had shouted at her husband one night, when Mr. Ackerly-Tate had tried to explain that it really wasn't her choice. "Our son will not fall victim to the glamour of California!"

So, she decided that she and her adorable little Brewster needed to have a... "discussion".

"Sweetheart," she had said to her eight-year-old son, smiling tightly. "Um... I know you _really_ want to train animals. But... Er..."

"But what, Mumsey?" he asked, looking up at her sweetly.

"But... I'm afraid I'm in charge of you until you're an adult, and by then you'll... 'want' to be a _doctor_."

And so Brewster grew up, longing for a monkey to discipline or a dog to teach cricket to; and he focused so much on his animals that his marks in school slowly deteriorated into nothing. His mother's dreams for him to be a fine heart surgeon were dashed, and after he (eventually) forgave her, Brewster took several different jobs and earned enough money to pay for a building on Lower Belgrave Street. He became a private investigator because it was one of the few jobs that required very little education.

And he compensated for the animal training by starting a collection of kittens.

_-=-_

**MEANWHILE, IN RUSSIA**

  


"Doe, a deer, a female deer..."

James Norrington was not in a very good mood. Nearly five months in a foreign prison could do that to you, he supposed. Especially when Will Turner was across the hall, belting showtunes both famous and annoying. Or when two Russian sumo-wrestlers, who called themselves Kristoff and Ivan, kept giving him sidelong glances and saying suspicious-sounding things in their native language. Needless to say, life was anything _but_ a cabaret.

"Ray, a drop of golden sun...."

Ivan said something to Kristoff, and gestured at James for the thirtieth time that day. 

"Me, a name I call myself..."

_Yes, but everyone else calls you "Raving lunatic"_ Norrington thought.

There was, all of a sudden, a very intense quiet, and James offered up prayers of thanks for getting at least one moment's peace. Between Sondheim and Gershwin and Rodgers and Hammerstein constantly, whoever had even thought of the idea of a singing bit of theatre was forever on his blacklist.

"You know," the words floated over from Turner's cage to James's. "I think I've just had a major relevation,"

"_Revelation_, Turner."

"Right... Re. _Vel_. Ation. Anyway, I think I've figured out how we can get out of here and save Elizabeth."

James sighed. As much as he disliked Turner, he couldn't help but feel sorry for his infinite hope. Because, while Will actually thought that they still had a chance of capturing Jack Sparrow and returning Elizabeth to her father, he -- Norrington -- knew that all was lost. He knew that Sparrow had probably recovered, and Elizabeth had been too weak from shock to even consider running for her life...

Perhaps he was just being negative about things, but they were definitely not looking up. After all, he was Elizabeth's only... _intellegent_ hope. 

But James Norrington, having been trapped in Russia, did not know that Mr. Swann had called Detective Ackerly-Tate and Friday Lawrence.

_-=-_

"Miss Lawrence... do you think that blue wool stockings would work with my gray suit if I used that periwinkle tie and the silver cufflinks?"

Detective Ackerly-Tate raised his head from his suitcase, holding a pair of socks next to a tie and gesturing towards a suit that was draped over a chair. Friday raised an eyebrow. 

This was going to be one long case.

_-=-_


	3. The Flight

**A/N:** Never watch a Colin Firth movie if you have fanfics you need to get done. _Pride & Prejudice_ wiped all thoughts of Brewster and Friday from my mind, for which I must apologize. I also must ask that if any of you have seen _Girl With a Pearl Earring_, be kind enough to tell me how it is. *sighs* Stupid movie theatres where I live...

_-=-_

The flight to Las Vegas was a very intriguing one for Friday Lawrence, who was presently sitting between Detective Ackerly-Tate as he played a game on his cell, and another man she had never before met, who was giving her very disturbing looks. She tried to ignore both the music from the Detective's game and her other neighbor's eyes by playing with more Letters to Mumsey... but then the stranger spoke.

"I like feet," he said with a sly grin. For a moment, Friday didn't know what to say -- a scream would have done that proclamation justice, but she really didn't want to disturb the other passengers. "Um," she finally said, trying not to sound openly horrified. "Feet, eh?" The Man nodded. "How lovely."

Friday turned quickly to Detective Ackerly-Tate, who was still trying to beat his little cell phone game... and was looking rather put-out that he couldn't master it. Both hands were firmly clamped on the crome device, his gaze focused on the tiny, color screen.

"Detective?" Friday whispered, poking his shoulder. 

"Not now, Miss Lawrence," he replied through gritted teeth. "I'm on the last level, and I'll be damned if I let it trump me again!"

Friday thought that her problem was a bit more urget, so she continued to poke her boss and whisper to him about the foot-loving man next to her. He was paying her absolutely no attention, but she was very -- and understandably -- determined to switch seats with Detective Ackerly-Tate.

"We're almost in Nevada, dear, so please stop bothering me..."

"No, Detective, you really don't understand ---"

A rather ominous noise came from the cell phone, and Detective Ackerly-Tate slowly turned to look at his secretary.

"You know," he said, trying very hard to sound very indifferent. "Sometimes I regret that I didn't hire that Pierce fellow who came in for an interview just before you did."

Friday rolled her eyes, and carefully explained her situation with the foot-man. "Would you please, _please_ trade seats with me, Detective? I'll do anything you want when we get to Vegas -- I'll buy you a kitten!"

He agreed, very reluctantly, and took his seat next to the foot-man, who immediately shut up and didn't say another word for the rest of the flight. Brewster decided to try yet again at his cell phone, but before he started the game, he leaned over and whispered something very ominous into Friday's ear:

"I'm holding you to that promise, Miss Lawrence."

_-=-_

The next morning, Friday and Detective Ackerly-Tate were breakfasting in a Las Vegas café, both looking very out of place against the "natives" as the Detective called them. He had been explaining to her that whole morning that the natives of Nevada were a simple people -- consumed by things that Englanders didn't really think of. Friday did, of course, try to shut him up... But Detecive Ackerly-Tate could never stop talking when he thought he was educating someone.

_Heavens_, Friday thought to herself, staring blankly at a pastry the Detective had shoved in front of her -- it was currently fulfilling the role of England, to demonstrate the distance between America and their own Brittania. _This is getting to be a P.G. Wodehouse novel... Unfortunately, I think I'm Jeeves._

This little geography lesson was finally cut short by Friday's realization that it was time to inquire after the nurses at the Desert Springs Hospital, so they finished their breakfast and left very quickly, completely silent until they reached their destination.

_-=-_


	4. The First Interrogation

**A/N:** Sorry this chapter took so long... I wanted to get Of Broken Hearts finished first, and that took longer than I thought it would. Anyway, here's chapter four.

_-=-_

Lizzie Sparrow was writing an e-mail.

It was something she did frequently now -- for she hadn't had much time for it back in England, but now found the internet to be quite an entertaining diversion -- and many a time she had gotten on Instant Messenger with her friends from work, or with Jack when he was in his Office, occupying himself with some sort of criminal activity that she had never asked him about.

She had _thought_ about asking him, though. She remembered having asked him before they were married, and never getting an answer; and the more she thought about that, the more she desperately wanted to know what on earth her husband could be doing.

And just as she hit the _send_ button on her e-mail to her friend Britni, curiosity overwhelmed her. She had never really learned the meaning of the word "privacy", what with her father being a politician, and so what she did was (by technicality only) not her fault. After all, she hadn't had a lesson in not typing a person's name into a search engine to find out what they've been up to.

Askjeeves.com returned all sorts of results on her husband, she discovered. Articles of arrests in Germany and Holland for grand theft auto; vandalism and assaulting an officer in France; and something in Canada that had to do with a moose and a pair of tartan boxers... The latter being something she just didn't want to know about.

She searched and she searched, carefully sifting through each website, slowly reading off her husband's list of crimes against the crown, against the establishment, and so on. Shoplifting, impersonating a police officer, impersonating a Catholic bishop in a confessional, arson... Then she found something. The summary of the webpage read like this:

**HOW TO GET TO CAPTAIN SPARROW'S SITE**  
Everyone knows and loves CAPTAIN SPARROW, if not  
for his courage, then for his website...

Of course, Lizzie was intrigued. She remembered, when first she had met Jack, that a man had called him "Captain", and she had no idea what it meant.

She was going to find out.

_-=-_

"Where were you on the night of January third, 1984?"

Friday looked up from her laptop and to the table in the center of the room, where the Detective was leaning into the face of yet another "character who might know something" -- more commonly known as a Desert Springs Hospital nurse. Unlike all the others that Brewster had drilled that day, she didn't seem frightened or surprised by this man's strange behavior. Friday didn't understand it.

"Detective," she said, breaking the death-stare between interrogator and nurse, "I hardly think that question is relevant,"

He tried to death-stare _her_ for a moment, which was ridiculous as she had met all his kittens, but ended up breaking into a smile. "I know it isn't," he whispered confidentially. "I've just always wanted to ask it."

He turned back to the rather bemused nurse and continued: "Answer me, woman, or I'll have the police brought in!"

"That's where I was," the woman replied with a laugh. "How funny! You see, that was my thirteenth birthday, and I went to go see The Police."

Brewster raised an eyebrow, and Friday could tell he was not at all sure of what to say. 

"_Really_?"

"Yeah,"

The smile replaced the grimace. "Good lord, how _smashing_! I adore The Police!"

The Secretary rolled her eyes, positive that she was going to have to intervene before the Detective got to talking about how poetic Sting was, and the shrine in his walk-in closet for everything that ever had to do with that particular member of the band. "Detective, we're here about Miss Swann, remember?" _For all we know, she could have been dismembered and thrown into a ditch with all this time you're wasting..._

Brewster's face fell slightly, his eyebrows lowering. "Oh," he said, sounding quite as though he were going to cry. "Oh. Right. Miss Swann." He turned to the nurse. "Did you see her?"

"Well, I didn't see her _leave_," the nurse replied. "But I _did_ see her... I was attending to the man who had kidnapped her, and when I went in to change his bandage, she was in there with him..."

"Ah," said Brewster. "Provoking the blackguard, was she? _Good Always Wins_ and whatnot?"

The nurse made a funny sort of face at the man in brown tweed, and said, "Uh... not exactly."

_-=-_

There was a little diner not too far from Desert Springs Hospital, and rather catch a taxi back to their hotel, where the two PI's found that they would be living on vending-machine M&M's and Coca-Cola, they decided to stop off there instead. Then, perhaps, they could discuss the information they had just received.

The Detective was much too shocked to discuss.

"They were _kissing_?!" Brewster Ackerly-Tate looked helplessly at his assistant, who sat across the table from him, praying that she would have something to say in order to calm him down. She usually had one of her sarcastic retorts stored away -- where was one when he needed it?

"I must admit it's rather strange," Friday replied, staring blankly at her fingernails. "But this whole kidnap thing could have been some mangled love-affair all along. Perhaps she planned it with him, perhaps she didn't. Either way, the last time they were seen together, it was in a romantic situation, so there's a very good chance she's still alive."

"I know, but..." Brewster shuddered at the thought of a nineteen year old girl with an old man like that Sparrow creature. "That would be like you kissing me!"

"There's not that big of an age difference with us," she said. "Twenty-six and thirty-eight is nothing when you put it against the twenty-one years between Miss Swann and Mr. Sparrow."

"_Twenty-one years_?!"

"Yes, Detective."

He shuddered. He knew people were strange, but this was just a teeny bit too much. What if the poor girl had been seduced? -- Oh, he didn't even want to _think_ about that... _Bad thoughts! BAD THOUGHTS! Go away bad thoughts, back to hell..._

"...Detective?"

He looked up from the table, still trying to dismiss the bad thoughts whilst he replied to his secretary.

"Er... yes?"

"Things are what you make of them, you know," Friday said, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "So, instead of thinking how disturbing the victim's situation is, you could think that it might be easier to find them now."

Brewster raised an eyebrow, feeling all sorts of skeptical emotions welling up inside of him. "How will it be easier?" he asked. "Shall we ask people if they've seen any little girls snogging old men as of late?"

"No," she muttered. "I was thinking more along the lines of the fact that they'll be living together."

_-=-_


	5. The First Discovery

_-=-_

**A/N:** Okay, I really hate to do this, but please consider the following a warning; if anyone tells me what to do with this -- I don't mind suggestions, in fact, I LOVE suggestions, buit I'm talking all-out command -- I'm afraid I will have to kabob you. Which involves slicing you up into little pieces. Thanks for your time.

By the way, **Curiosity Inc.**, I am _not_ getting rid of Brewster. You're the only one who has a problem with him, and just because he hasn't done anything particularly important by chapter four is no reason to hate him.

This chapter is dedicated to **luvlyGRLofLIFE**, **Aelimir**, and **WolviesLover**, who literally made my day.

_-=-_

Detective Ackerly-Tate and his assistant did not consider further contemplating the wonders of Elizabeth Swann and Jack Sparrow. Friday knew, as only a person's secretary could, the effects that conversation would have on the rest of the case. She could live with baby-talking, kitten-loving, yarn-knitting Brewster, but a mortified mass of neurotic twitching would wear more on her nerves. They did some minor sightseeing, including a stop for dinner at a place called Rob's Diner. They parted ways when they reached the hotel, Friday headed off to have a shower and read a paperback novel she had picked up at a grocery store. The only thing Brewster was able to plan on, however, was nothing.

He tried to watch television, but the remote control was large, and rather complicated. He tried staring out the window at all the people on the streets, and the women -- seemingly as bored as he was -- standing on street corners. He tried reading the Bible that the hotel had so thoughtfully provided, and although he found some of the Psalms particularly inspirational, his attention continued wandering.

He began thinking. This, of course, was very odd behavior for Brewster Ackerly-Tate, who thought as little as possible and never regretted it a day in his life. But... something was happening inside his head. A funny sort of whirring noise was heard in the background of his mind, and as the whirring continued, an idea popped into his head.

_Miss Lawrence mentioned earlier that the Criminal and the Victim might have been... romantically involved,_ Brewster told himself as the gears in his brain turned, slowly but surely helping each thought process to happen. _She said that... er, what was it? ...That they might be living together. Ew... BUT, she's... Right..._ His eyebrows lowered, falling out of distance from the rather shaggy curls that hid them when his hair wasn't combed. _...And - and if a couple was trying to hide, they'd want to be in the most diverse place possible..._

He stood up and left the hotel room without a single consideration as to what his assistant might be doing. She was, of course, just next door, and he didn't see any harm in going to ask her a simple question about the most populated state in America. He had hired her, after all, because she was incredibly knowledgable in all things that he was not (which was very nearly everything, but he didn't want to think about that). He _hadn't_ hired her so that he could have a source of information and never put it to good use.

He wondered, very briefly, why she hadn't been some sort of Professor or Doctor.

He knocked, and nothing happened. He knocked again, waiting very patiently for the answer to his question. He had to knock two more times before he got an answer.

"What do you want, Detective?"

Brewster paid no attention to her aggravated tone. He could only think of how intellegent she must be if she knew it was him. 

"Miss Lawrence, dearest," _Yes, butter her up before you ask the question..._ "I believe I've had a theory concerning the You-Know-Who's."

The girl on the other side of the door sighed deeply and let him in, setting her book down on the night table. Happiness, it seemed, was to be prolonged another few minutes.

_-=-_

Lizzie Sparrow was not at all happy. The webpage in front of her was not something she had ever wanted to see, and although she had never questioned the mountains of money Jack brought home every once in a while, she somehow felt horribly decieved. A piracy corporation? That explained the film reels and other things that had been delivered before they had left for the Caribbean. Hadn't he admitted piracy on top of Caesar's Palace? She couldn't remember. She had been dangling over the edge of a very tall building.

She knew, of course, that Jack wasn't the ethical sort. Or that any sort of morals he had stowed away inside of him would ever influence his financial wellbeing. This just seemed too... too Dastardly, when coupled with the fact that he never told her anything. Perhaps he had a woman in his "office" with him, too! Imagine the scandal...

She stood from the computer desk, anger very much overwhelming her tiny frame. Marching over to the door of the closet which housed his work space, she began pounding methodically on the door, hoping to splinter the wood.

Unfortunately, she had never been that strong.

"What do you want?" she heard Jack's voice say, sounding quite enveloped in whatever he was doing. This, of course, only provoked his dear wife to further anger.

"_Jack, you come out of that closet **this instant**_!"

"I don't think that'll please you very much, darling,"

_Oooh, he's so infuriating!_ Lizzie thought venemously. _So damnably putrid!_

She shouted the first thing that came to her head. "Oh, you bloody Pirate!"

And with that, she grabbed a nearby nine-iron Jack had brought home from a pawn shop -- he had hoped to wire it into a lamp -- and began beating frantically at the door. Needless to say that the golf club, combined with her anger, increased Mrs. Sparrow's strength considerably.

_-=-_

Friday Lawrence couldn't believe her ears as she listened to her employer speak, innocently rattling off all the conclusions he had drawn in his time alone. She was surprised because it actually made sense. If one was trying to hide, he had reasoned, one would go to the biggest or most differing area one could find. For once in all the time she had been working for Brewster Ackerly-Tate, she did not want to smack him upside the head with a brick.

"...So, I was wondering," he finished, his voice getting softer, "Er... Do you know what the most populated state is?"

"California, I believe," she replied, not really needing to think about it. "But that is just a bit too close to Nevada,"

"Well, what about on the East Coast? That's very far away from here, if I remember correctly..." He looked at her hopefully. "Isn't New York over there?"

_-=-_


	6. The Long List of Other Things

_-=-_

**A/N:** This chapter dedicated to **Curiosity Inc.**, to whom I owe an apology. I'm sorry I didn't reply to your e-mail, my computer has issues... And I wasn't really offended that you gave me criticism, just that you phrased it in such a way that it sounded more of a command. I'm very, very sorry if I, in turn, offended you.

**MEANWHILE, IN RUSSIA**

It was the dead of night... or maybe the middle of the day -- Will couldn't really tell, this prison had no windows. Either way, James was across the hall snoring dreadfully. He had been sleeping a lot, lately, and Will was terrified that it might be because of depression. It seemed the sort of thing that the man would have, if not by accident then by long hours of working at negativity. Why, just the other day when Will had tried to wake him up to tell him that Ivan and Kristoff were talking about him again, he had replied with a groan of "Someone please shoot me..."

The man was obviously in need of anti-depressants... or a Care-Bears movie.

Anyway... the thing was, as his friend was sleeping, Will was sort of bored. There's not exactly a lot to do in a prison, after singing showtunes (Norrington had made him stop after he began _Cats_. But, perhaps he was allergic). There had been a small white rock on the floor, which had been used to draw a hopscotch area, but he got tired after so much jumping around. So, he sat and thought about all the words to all the musicals he had seen or had CD's of. He didn't get very far before Ivan and Kristoff drifted off, too.

He was the only one in his particular corner of the jail that was awake when two guards came in, each holding the arm of a rather wiry looking man who seemed to find something fascinating about the ground. They stopped in front of the cell next to Will's, which had been emptied a few days ago, and threw the man inside. Several manly grunts followed, probably in a hopeful attempt to show everyone who was in charge. That was rather stupid, Will laughed to himself, as they were the ones who were called "guards", and everyone down here was called "convict".

The guards left, and Will found himself carefully examining his new neighbor. There wasn't anything particularly special about him... Very tall, very thin. His hair was almost maroon, and seemed to be continually ruffled by the man's own hand -- probably a nervous tic, Will guessed, pretending for a moment that he was back on the job and not in some dirty foreign jail without anything better to do than stare at a stranger. Then again, he _did_ have something better to do, for a moment at least.

"Er... Excuse me," he said, looking hopefully at the man. "Do you, by any chance, speak a word of English?"

_-=-_

Jack Sparrow was in his office, carefully uploading data to his website when his wife began shouting at him. He didn't know exactly what he'd done, because she had never wailed like this before and there was no past experience to guess from, so he asked what she wanted. The next thing he knew, she was screaming obscenities and whacking through his door with the nine-iron he had found at that pawn shop down the road.

The bloody thing missed his nose by a centimeter.

When she hit the splintering wood again, he stood up as fast as he could, his mind whirring as he tried desperately to figure out what would stop her rampage. 

"Lizzie, darling --"

She smacked the door again, a sizeable hole beginning to show up as the chunks of wood from her previous attacks fell away.

"Lizzie, pet, could you please stop --" "You _evil man_!" she screamed, angry thuds punctuating the exclamation. "You bloody evil man!"

Jack assessed the situation, beginning to get jumpy as to what he could have possibly done to get her so riled. He hadn't been sleeping with someone, he hadn't gotten drunk and done something stupid... then again, he couldn't rule out that choice... It was beginning to get horribly dangerous, what with all the wood shards flying about, and he wasn't about to hide under his computer desk like a horrified child.

He was _not_, by any standards, a child. So, he did the only thing that he could think of.

"Elizabeth, please stop... I'm _sorry_, love!"

She stopped. Jack smirked in a very self-satisfied way, carefully stepping across the debris and out of his office, over to where his wife was standing in a corner of the hallway. He stopped, though, when he saw the look on her face. He had watched those shows with matadors and bulls, and he remembered laughing at their antics. He also remembered the look that bulls got on their faces when they had been thwarted, and then devised a way to skewer the fancypants matador.

Elizabeth gave him that look, and for the first time in his life, Jack Sparrow was afraid of a woman. A _small_, _young_ woman.

"Do you even know what you've done?" she asked venomously, dropping the golf club much too close to his foot. "Do you even know what you've bloody done, Jack?"

"Er... I love you?"

_-=-_

"New York?"

Brewster nodded, hoping that he hadn't just made an idiot of himself. He tended to do that a lot, and although he was fairly used to it, it was not a feeling that a person could enjoy. Unfortunately, that feeling was starting to build up in the pit of his stomach, a sort of churning embarrassment as Friday Lawrence continued to stare right at him.

"New York?" she repeated, eyes widening.

"Yes, New York... Not a terrible deduction, is it? Because if it was, I -- "

She cut him off with an exclamation of "Oh, no! No, Detective, it's not a terrible idea at all..." She adjusted her position in one of the uncomfortable hotel room chairs that had been provided, and smiled... perhaps wryly. "It's a rather good idea, when a person considers the facts."

"Yes, that's exactly what I had guessed," he replied vigorously. There was something about being right, for once, that gave him a rather pleasant buzz of energy. He wanted for all the world to head to the airport and fly to New York at that very instant... but along with the cheer surprise of having made a correct assumption, Brewster noticed that the strange churning in his stomach had not gone away.

_Odd,_ he thought. But he had never had the longest attention span, and the thought was very easily dismissed when Miss Lawrence broke the awkward pause by announcing that she had called Brewster's housekeeper to see how his kittens were.

"Lord Wugglesby caught a little mouse," she said, trying her best to sound interested in the information. "and Madame Floof Devereaux's new ribbons arrived in the post."

Brewster expressed his happiness that his precious girl could finally be properly adorned in the company of Sir Pelham and Mr. Avery, and the conversation came to an abrupt halt. They looked at each other for a moment, neither sure of what to say. This was not an uncommon occurance, as they had worked together long enough to understand that they had absolutely nothing in common.

Miss Lawrence coughed. "So... we leave tomorrow morning, then?"

"Yes," he replied, nodding slightly. "Yes, tomorrow morning." She gave him a very pointed look, which he returned without hesitation. 

"I'd like to go to sleep now, Detective."

"Oh, right."

He left her immediately, and, upon arriving in his own room, began to pack. Suits, socks, ties, undergarments, and finally, a black hat reminiscent of one that Humphrey Bogart wore in _Casablanca_ all graced his suitcase. Brewster smiled in satisfaction as he surveyed the neatness that now surrounded him, and resigned himself to bed with a happy sigh. ...However, he could not close his eyes without getting another idea as to what Elizabeth Swann and her captor might be doing.

Quite frankly, he was beginning to wonder what was in the Nevada air.

_-=-_


	7. The Second and Third Discoveries

**A/N:** I am so, _so_ sorry that this chapter took so long. My inspiration wandered randomly for a very long time -- but this is getting started up again. Hopefully, with no more pauses. Thanks for waiting. wink

* * *

Jack Sparrow had never been the brightest man. Clever, yes. Conniving, yes. Stylish, occasionally -- but he had never really seen a use for brains, other than keeping him alive. He had always thought that if brains were smaller, there could be room in one's head for things that were more... better. Like a psychic telephone or flamethrowers for Heat-Vision. 

This, of course, is one of the many reasons why he got himself into trouble so often. 

It had never been a problem before. Up until he had married Little Miss Priggy-pants, he had always been able to talk his way out of trouble. But, as in most cases, she changed him a bit. When Lizzie was angry, it was now his place to be frightened. 

"You're an idiot," she said, throwing the golf club to the ground in annoyance. "You prance about, pretending nothing's the matter when all the time you're _pirating_?! In _America_?!" 

_Oh. That's what it's about..._ he thought, biting the inside of his cheek. _Piracy._ Yes, it was just like her to know that he'd killed people, burgled, thrown eggs at cars and whatnot without a single care or inhibition. But when she finds out about his bloody commandeering, she blew up. Just like Lizzie -- little prat that she was. 

"What about it?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's just stealing. No need to make it a big todo, dearest." 

That was, apparently, not the right thing to say. Jack deduced this from the fact that his wife _tried_ to smile, placing a pale hand on his shoulder with her nails digging through his shirt. It hurt... a lot, but this was a game of endurance and he was not about to surrender. 

"Jack, darling," Lizzie said, still grinning evilly. "While it may have been 'just stealing' in England, it's very different here. I'm sure that you don't pay the slightest attention to international affairs, but _I_ do. Currently, piracy is a very big issue in America." 

_Oh._ "...It is?" 

"Yes, they have commercials with that fellow who played Sam in _Lord of the Rings_ -- and did you know that they can track computers in America?" 

_Damn._ "...You're fibbing." 

"How much do you want to bet that the police are here within two weeks?"

* * *

The man who had been thrown in the jail cell next to Will gave a slight cough at his question, and raised a twitchy eyebrow. 

"Well..." Will said promptingly. "Come on, if you can I'm not going to... hit you or anything. Not like I could, anyway, as we're caged and all..." 

The man coughed again. 

_This is not proving to be very productive,_ the somewhat lonely secretary thought to himself with a sigh. _If he was incapable of speaking English, he could at least say so in his native language. I'd get the gist of things._ He stared at the corner of James' cell morosely, suddenly finding his hope extinguished. 

"...Hey, look, don't be offended -- I was trying to get a hang of the situation." 

Will looked up, and found the stranger looking at him, cheek twitching. 

"You're American," Will said happily. "Do you have any idea how wonderful this is?!" The man just gave him another twitch. "Er... what's your name?" 

"Barrett Garrett." 

"...Really?" 

"My mom liked rhymes." 

"Oh..." Will said, feeling slightly bemused. "Well, er, I'm Will Turner -- the fellow sleeping over there is James Norrington... He's my boss." 

"Mafia?" Barrett Garrett asked, with a small snicker. "I didn't know the Brits _had_ organized crime." 

"Er... Actually, James and I were on the police force in London. Unfortunately things got a bit... _weeeellll_... I suppose the only term for it is 'out of hand.' " 

Barrett laughed and paced around his cell for a moment, eyes darting around sneakily. "You weren't the guys on the Elizabeth Swann case, were ya?" 

"Er..." _Yes._ Will thought. _Yes... Yes, we were._

"Right," the unsettling, twitchy expression on Barrett's face was giving Will a disturbed feeling. "Bet you'd do anything to get outta this place and rescue that chick." 

"Well... not exactly _anything_..." 

"But you'd do a lot, right?" Eyes probed into the deepest recesses of Will's thoughts, which gave him a bit of a headache. 

"Well... Yes." 

"And your boss, right? Bet he feels like a loser." 

As pleasant as this conversation was, a certain British young man was having trouble adjusting to the tone of Mr. Garrett's observations. Quite frankly, Will did not wish to talk about their failure to assist Elizabeth Swann. He did not want to talk about how much of an idiot he felt, about how badly he wished he could kill Jack Sparrow with his own bare hands. So he said: 

"Well, I think that's enough about me, Mr. Garrett -- it's not particularly fair to ask me all these questions when you are volunteering no information about yourself... How did you end up in this... place?" 

"Blew a place up," he said, smiling and twitching. "but, you wouldn't have heard about that... Anyway, Billy --" 

"Will... You blew a place up? With _people_ inside?!" 

"Billy... This building's kinda old. Okay, _really_ old, and I happen to know that our cells -- mine, yours, and Jamie's over there -- are all snuggled right next to the outside wall. If we got some kinda object, we could chip away at this mortar and be out of here before you'd have time to say 'Stanislavski'. Whaddaya say?" 

Suddenly, Will Turner began to feel very sick. If he said yes to this mass-murderer -- he was in the same building as a mass-murderer! -- then he would be turning into the kind of person he had worked most of his life to put behind bars. If he said no, who knows what might happen to Elizabeth? Who knows what might have already happened?" 

"Er... I'll have to consult with James," he replied, words sticking in his throat as he tried to choke them up. "Erghm... Other than being free, of course, what would be in it for us? Uhm... It's hard to get a passport or a -- a visa here, isn't it?" 

Barrett Garrett gave yet another tic-ish grin. "I have a friend in the docks business." 

_Docks_? Will thought frantically. _Isn't that where criminals exchange narcotics and dirty magazines?!_

"...Oh..." he said, very weakly. 

"He'll be able to get us on a boat in no time at all. Why don't you ask Jamie there what he thinks... he could stand to wake up for a minute or two." 

Will's eyes widened and he bit his bottom lip, trying to imagine the outcome of whichever he picked. Good and Not Good tore at his brains, fighting in a way that the poor boy had only ever seen on _When Exotic Carnivorous Beasts Find Their Way Into Dinner Parties and Attack!_. 

"...James?" he said, swallowing very hard. "James, wake up for a minute." 

"I hate you," came the reply from the depths of Norrington. 

"James... There's a crazed murderer here that wants to help us out. ...What should I do?" 

James sat up very abruptly, gave Barrett a funny look and said: "If he can get us out of this filthy place, do whatever he asks you to." 

Will whimpered. 


End file.
